


Demon in a Bottle

by AvengersNewB



Series: Incoherent Love Songs [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Abusive Parents, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alpha Tony Stark, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Injury, Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Hurt Steve Rogers, Hurt/Comfort, Joseph Rogers A++ parenting, M/M, Omega Steve Rogers, Protective Tony Stark, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Steve's parents are alive, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, breaking the cycle of shame
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-14
Updated: 2020-04-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:08:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23624368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AvengersNewB/pseuds/AvengersNewB
Summary: Young alpha Tony Stark picks up his omega, Steve Rogers, from his dad's place,  bruised and battered, and he has to do his best to protect his omega from the harms of abusive alcoholic parents.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Series: Incoherent Love Songs [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1522799
Comments: 50
Kudos: 356





	Demon in a Bottle

**Author's Note:**

> For the anon who sent this ask on Tumblr:  
> "OK but something I, personally, thought of first bc Steve looks so fucking hurt and like he's about to cry. We always talk about Howard's A+ parenting but. Canonically, Joseph, Steve's father, was a violent asshole too. He was the reason Sarah taught Steve to never back down. So you know where I'm going with this... XDD"  
> regarding this [ amazing gifset ](https://pasta-noob.tumblr.com/post/613873430989799424/insert-angst-hurt-comfort), shared by pasta noob.
> 
> I hope I got what you had in mind anon, and I guess you already know that I make everything a/b/o as much as I can, so hope that is okay :)) and thank you to pasta noob for all the awesome gif sets!
> 
> This fic discusses alcoholism and abusive parents, although I think it is not dark and has a hopeful tone. However, if you don't want to be exposed to these topics, please take care of yourself and don't read this fic.
> 
> THANK YOU SO MUCH TO MAIRI, AND TIG FOR BETA <3 <3 (oh god, I have no idea how I forgot to thank these amazing people when I posted this fic!!!!! :( sorry ! )
> 
> For those of you who decide to give it a go, I hope you enjoy it.

Steve sounds off on the phone.

Tony has heard Steve angry and sad, even jealous a couple of times, but never this way; the way his voice breaks and he starts coughing mid-conversation, the breathlessness of his words that lingers in Tony’s mind all the way from Manhattan to Brooklyn. 

Tony should not have listened to Steve. It was a stupid idea for Steve to go check on his dad on his own anyway, and Tony should have gone with him, because he is the alpha here, for God’s sake, even if Steve is the one between the two of them who can beat people up generally. He calls Steve many times, with no luck and his heart is beating in his throat when he finally parks in the nearest spot to Steve’s parents’ place. He calls Sarah back, trying to sound calm and he promises to bring Steve back safe and sound. He repeats that she should not ask Happy to drive her to Brooklyn and if Steve wanted her there, Tony would have taken her along, in the first place. Sarah asks if Tony minds for her to go lay down on Steve’s side of their bed to smell his pillow, before hanging up and something painful tightens Tony’s chest. She’s been living with them for four months now and the way she asks for permission to do the simplest things is just heartbreaking. 

Standing in the street in front of the run-down apartment block, Tony contemplates ringing the buzzer of Sarah and Joseph’s apartment when a hand lands on his shoulder from behind.

“Steve?” Tony turns on his heels and freezes in place, unable to move, speak or breathe for a few seconds.

Steve, _his_ Steve, who can pick up and move cars blocking their way, who can rip logs for the open fireplace in their upstate cabin with his hands, is barely standing up in front of Tony. He has a black eye and a swollen nose and there is blood all over his face and neck, even his hair.

Tony wants to cry. He wants to scream, run upstairs and kill Joseph Rogers. He wants to break those filthy fingers one by one, at least two times, because no one, no one can raise a hand to Tony’s omega and see the light of tomorrow, but right now he needs to wrap his arms around Steve to stop him from shivering so much so his teeth won’t be chattering like this.

He takes his overcoat off to wrap it around Steve, and scowls when Steve wants to return it. Tony is wearing a jacket and he won’t be cold but Steve’s just like that. He prefers freezing to death over making Tony slightly uncomfortable. 

Not this time, Tony growls from between his gritting teeth, and to his surprise, Steve doesn’t talk back. He leans against Tony as they walk to the car and his unexpected compliance makes something twist in Tony’s guts. 

“No hospital Tony,” Steve whispers as he shuffles on the passenger's seat and breathes in sharply. Tony covers him with the coat, strokes his bloody hair and leans forward so Steve can smell him better. Steve takes another deep breath, as he rests his face on Tony’s and whispers again in his ears, “ no hospital Tony. Please.”

Tony kisses Steve’s cheek, as gently as he possibly can, but Steve hisses from pain anyway. He has to be checked out, Tony mutters to himself as he closes the passenger door, and he sends a message to Bruce to meet them at the penthouse before he gets in the car and turns on the heater. 

***

Steve is looking out of the window. He might have internal injuries, Tony thinks, as he watches Steve’s chest heaving, every hitch of his breath burning a blaze of rage through Tony’s chest, and he struggles to keep the bitterness from flowing into his scent, into his eyes, and into his voice. “I should’ve come with you. I should have. I wouldn't have let him raise his hands to you.” 

"He would not have opened the door if you were with me, Tony. That's why I came alone in the first place, remember?" Steve says, still looking out of the window. He is not looking at Tony and it’s just unfair that he has to keep his face away to keep Tony calm, instead of looking at him

"I would have waited for you in the car, Steve, so you at least wouldn’t have to wait this long in the cold, without your jacket. And God, what if I’ve had more to drink? I would’ve had to wait for Happy to show up." Tony inhales Steve’s scent, and the unsettled sorrow feels like a cold hand pressing on his throat. He needs to pull over and hold Steve in his arms and kiss the top of his head until his scent is not this pained anymore, but Bruce should be arriving at the penthouse soon and Sarah must be dead worried by now. He takes a deep breath and brushes his fingers over the back of Steve’s hand instead, and his heart flutters in his chest because Steve wraps his fingers around Tony’s.

“I need to keep you safe. It’s my job, it’s the only good thing I am doing with my life. You never need me and we both know that. That you can take care of yourself _and me_ in every single aspect of life and I am just useless mostly, but this one time, that I could’ve helped, I wasn’t there and I am so sorry.”

Steve turns his face toward Tony, finally, and the blood on his chin makes Tony want to kill someone again. He does his best to school his face though; he doesn’t want Steve to look away from him. Not now. Not ever. 

Steve smiles, soft and sweet, and the muscles of his face must hurt because he shudders a little. “Please don’t say things like that about my alpha, Tony. You know how much I hate that. I need you in every aspect of life, I can’t breathe without you.” And there, the soothing comfort of his eyes, as Tony takes his eyes off the road for a second to look at him, calms Tony down immediately.

“Why did you let him do this?” Tony asks and he regrets the question as soon as it’s said out loud. 

“Because he is my dad. I can’t… I can’t hit my dad,” and he looks down as his voice breaks, breaking Tony’s heart into sharp little pieces. “I tried to stop him, you know, hold his hands or something. But...but...he called me ‘skinny boy’ and… well, I was the skinny boy again. I was suddenly six and could not move a finger.” 

Tony can tell, before looking back at Steve from the slight trembling of Steve’s hand in his fingers, and the way his scent changes all of a sudden. He breathes in and out, trying hard to keep it together, as he signals to pull over. Steve, his Steve, his big perky omega who can sweep Tony off his feet, and not just hypothetically, is crying and Tony has to be the alpha for once. He has to keep calm and hold Steve in his arms until his scent is not distressed anymore. 

***

Watching Steve curled up against his mom should make Tony feel warm and fuzzy all over. A little jealous maybe, but a happy wishful kind. There is nothing happy or warm though, about the way Steve’s face is contorted with pain or how Sarah is playing with his hair absentmindedly, her skin looking even paler than usual.

Tony sits at the foot of the bed and rubs Steve’s feet, covered with the blanket. “Bruce will be back to check on you tomorrow. Still can’t believe I did not take you straight to the hospital.”

Steve looks at Tony, his eyes tired and pained, and he doesn’t try to smile, but Tony knows that he wants to, “I’ll be all better tomorrow. You know I heal pretty quickly.” 

Tony huffs in response, looking at Sarah and they do their ‘Steve’s really something’ head shake, which lightens up the mood a little. At least Sarah’s mood, because she smiles for the first time that night and rests her head on top of Steve’s which makes Steve press himself more to her side, and the sight gets warm and fuzzy at least a little.

“I don’t want to see you like this, Steve, not ever again. I don’t know what I will do if there is a next time, god forbid. I just don’t want to think about it.” 

Steve opens his eyes to look at Tony. “I am sorry--” and he stops talking as Sarah nudges him gently. “It was my fault, Steve,” she says, “you don’t have to apologize, love. I was worried about your dad, I thought he would actually hurt himself this time,” and she looks at Tony, her eyes apologetic, which is not an unexpected scene because she is apologizing for one thing or another all the time.

Tony doesn’t let her begin the sentence even, “Ma, please stop. It’s not your fault and it’s not Steve’s fault. The fact that Joseph is a piece of sh--,” and he stops himself, taking a deep breath as he looks at the two pairs of worried eyes in front of him.

Tony rarely raises his voice; almost never in front of Sarah. He does his best to be respectful when she is around, keeping from their usual banter with Steve, just to make sure that she is comfortable. He never makes decisions for them, never plays the alpha card, or at least he tries not to, and yet they get _scared_ the moment he raises his voice, completely involuntary. His omega, who Tony lives to keep safe and content, not that he succeeds at it usually but he tries, is scared right now and it makes Tony want to grab Joseph by his filthy lapels and punch his pathetic face. 

He takes another deep breath before speaking again. “This is _his_ fault. He is manipulating us, and we fall for it because we care about him,” and he whispers this time just so his voice does not disturb the omegas holding hands in the bed in front of him.

“He was doing really good for so long. Not a drink for almost ten years. I don’t know what I did wrong, I don’t know… what made him fall off the wagon like this...” Sarah says shakily before she trails off. Tony hates the way she looks worse than the night they picked her up from that Brooklyn Height dinner at 3 AM, bare feet and wearing a nightgown only. 

“No Ma, you did not do anything wrong. See, that’s the problem, we think his actions are a reflection of ours, but they are not. He is an addict, always will be and it’s no one’s fault that he decided to stop going to meetings after fifteen years.” Steve’s voice is shaking as he balls his hands into fists, flinching from the pain that must be stabbing his chest with the movement.

Tony stands up and walks over to wrap his hands around Steve and Sarah. He can’t take their pain away magically and he hates magic anyway, but if he has the shameful power of frightening Steve with the slightest change of his tone, he should also have the ability to hold him close and be the source of his comfort, the slightest amount at least.

“I think we have to admit him to rehab,” Steve sighs, as he places a slow kiss under Tony’s chin. “We can’t do this anymore. This is not helping anyone.” 

Tony wants to cheer and approve, not even surprised that Steve’s coherent enough to come to a conclusion like that, but he doesn’t say anything. As much as it hurts to see the most important people in his life hurt, he feels out of place to express an opinion here; or at least so does his logical civilized part. The other part is still growling, planning on different ways to break Joseph’s nose and crush his stinky figure. 

Sarah sighs too and wipes her eyes with the back of her hand. She looks up and smiles at Tony before she wraps her free hand around his waist and rests her head on his side. Steve turns to look at them and smiles, pained but warm, and Tony can tell that seeing his alpha pressing his Ma to his side is making him all warm and fuzzy inside. 

“I think you are right, darling. He is a danger to himself and others. I don’t know if I can afford--” and it’s Tony’s turn to sigh and stop Sarah, _right there._

“Ma, please! Please do not use that word here. I am especially begging you to not give that stubborn independent omega over there any ideas. It’s _our_ money, you know it’s legally so. Half of everything I own belongs to Steve and the other half, god, I just … I don’t see any better use for it than to protect my family. I know the best rehab upstate, I’ll get J to organize everything.” 

Steve smiles bitterly. “I’m nowhere as stubborn as my mom. Make her stop worrying about paying us back for the two and a half lousy pieces of clothes I bought her in the past four months,” and they all laugh, probably to distract each other from the tears that are running down their faces. 

***

Steve doesn’t listen to Tony’s reasoning that he’d better have another Vicodin to ease the pain in his face and hands. He obviously listens to Sarah though, and opens his mouth, like a good mommy's boy as Tony likes to tease him sometimes, to take the tablet. Tony sits back and watches them as Sarah feeds a giant peanut butter sandwich to Steve bite by bite and the warm and fuzzy feeling finally rolls through Tony’s chest, when Steve falls asleep, curled against Sarah’s side, with a shadow of calm and relief on his face, that overpowers the bruises and the broken lip. 

“Tony, love, let me--” Sarah whispers as she starts to shuffle and Tony has to gently hold her arm to stop her from moving. 

“It’s okay Ma, you sleep here tonight. I have to finish some work and I don’t think I can sleep anytime soon anyway,” Tony whispers back and the way Sarah smiles with relief breaks and heals Tony’s heart at the same time. 

Tony kisses Steve’s hair, because he looks perfect, always and now, even if the tiny bit of blood in the golden locks is too painful to look at. He kisses Sarah’s cheek too because it’s never a bad time to kiss Sarah Rogers as life owes her lots of gentleness and warmth and Tony has made it his business to pay that debt as much as he possibly can.

***

Staring at the bottle of Glendronach 18, Tony thinks about Steve who won’t be able to open his left eye tomorrow. He thinks about Sarah shaking in his arms when he walked her to the car that night in Brooklyn and Steve’s tears as he wrapped his arms around her, at the back seat. He thinks, with a pang of sorrow, about six-year-old Steve, shaking under the sink of their kitchen, and young Sarah on the kitchen floor with a broken rib and a bleeding spleen, all those years ago. 

Tony pours one drink into the tumbler. One and a half ounces exactly, one standard drink, because he is in control. He counts his drinks, and he knows how many he has every night. He never starts drinking before 5 PM, except when he goes out to lunch and has to drink a few with important people, or the days he pretends he doesn’t know it’s not five yet, the days he is not working, the days they spend in the cabin and don’t leave the bed the entire day. He knows how much he drinks exactly. He is in control.

So was his dad, in control of the half bottle of whiskey he drank every night. He could stop if he wanted to, as he used to tell his mom, through all those fights, that he drank because he wanted to and not because he needed to. Tony thinks about his dad who never gave him a broken lip and never raised a hand to his mom but turned into a perfect bully as soon as he donned the first glass of his Glendronach 18. He swallows the bile that suddenly comes up his throat, and thinks about that Sunday afternoon, his dad shouting at six-year-old him from the top of his lungs for not being able to swim, threatening to throw him in the deep end before his mom dragged Tony out of his hold and locked them both in Tony’s room. 

Tony picks the tumbler up and sways it gently. The swirl of the amber liquid brings a sudden urge to drink it right away so Tony brings the glass to his lips. He breathes in the aroma, and tastes it almost when he remembers the way Steve flinches every time Tony goes for the fourth or the fifth drink. He freezes with his hand in the air, remembering the way Steve never says a word, not a single one, but looks unmistakably sad, when Tony pours the very first drink every night. How Sarah tiptoes around him when she spots him with a glass and goes quiet when Tony is laughing for no apparent reason and chattering a bit too loud. 

He thinks about his regrettable decisions under influence in the past, like those embarrassing photos with Ty that were dug a couple of years ago, the memory still drowning him in a pool of shame. Or that time Tony decided it was a good idea to let Amber Sunrise roam around R&D and take photos which ended up being the most disastrous PR nightmare of Tony’s lifetime. 

He takes the glass away from his lips and holds it at eye level. It’s not like he has not thought about this before, really because he has thought about it, many times, especially over the past three years. He _knows_ that he drinks a little too much, at least some of the nights, but he’s been comforting himself with the knowledge that he, in fact, is not a mean drunk. That he doesn’t shout, that he never gets abusive. He’s been consoling himself that his drinking is not hurting Steve.

Tony brings the glass back to his lips but the liquid burns his tongue and he has to spit it out. His head is spinning, his stomach beginning to churn and he feels that air can’t find its way into his lungs, as he remembers the time - the many times - that he passed out in the most awkward places in the parties, and woke up in Steve’s arms as he was carrying him back to the car, or up the elevator to the penthouse. He suddenly remembers, vividly, how Steve clenches his jaw when Tony flirts with the endless number of omegas who gather around him in the get-togethers and waves his hand the next morning, spitting a quick ‘you were drunk’ to Tony’s apology. How his scent is off when he says that but Tony has never thought much of it, convincing himself that he is not sensing properly due to his hangover. Sick to his stomach and panting for air, he remembers Steve’s unanswered phone calls and his many messages, when Tony is away on business and the way Steve’s voice breaks every morning after one of Tony’s big nights away, when Tony finally calls him, how he asks if Tony is okay if anyone has given him a hard time last night if he walked to his hotel room or did someone have to carry him. 

Tony is stupid. 

He thinks about Steve’s hurt face and swollen fingers and the realization hits him with a pang of unbelievable regret that he has hurt Steve every single day of their life together, by drinking, and the only person he needs to growl at and punch in the gut is his stupid self. Steve’s been putting up with him for years, not because Tony is some special alpha. He has put up with Tony because he is the most caring omega in the whole world, who Tony has been blessed to find thanks to sheer luck.

Tony puts the glass down with a little too much force and watches the spilled drops on the oak desk. ‘The circle of shame’, he muses wiping the tears running down his face as he grabs the bottle, and he has to hold on to the edge of the desk for a few seconds waiting for the lightheadedness to subside before he can walk to the workshop sink. Steve loves Tony, and he will probably put up with much worse, but deep down, he finds it okay to deal with his alpha’s drinking, just as his mom has for so many years. Tony thinks that too, subconsciously, that it’s normal to put his omega through all the pain and misery, just as his dad did to his mom, for as long as Tony can remember. 

Tony thinks about Peter and Morgan, as he opens the bottle. He can’t believe he is using the names Steve’s been throwing around lately, since they’ve started trying for babies, but thinking about their hypothetical kids with actual names stops the sick churning in his stomach. Pouring the whiskey down the drain, Tony smiles at the idea of raising Peter and Morgan-and Harley too because he knows he can convince Steve for a third one- who will have no idea of what it means to be yelled at by a dad whose breath smells very funny. Kids who will never have to worry about their dad throwing up in the toilet and will never witness their pops crying quietly when their dad passes out in the middle of the backyard and refuses to be moved although it had started to shower outside. 

It’s not too late, Tony tells himself as he splashes water on his flushed face. 

It’s never too late to break the cycle of shame.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed it!
> 
> See if you send me an ask I write you a fic! well, I would do my best to do it :) so feel free to come talk to me on tumbler, I'm [avengersNewB](https://avengersnewb.tumblr.com/) !


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